Lovejoy and Tinker

We don't want you caching and collecting, we want you hiding But very glad not to have lost you completely and very grateful for all the great (and I mean great, challenging, exciting and memorable) caches you put out there. Hopefully you will put out some new ones one day. Just one question, where was 360? Was it near Pipers Quarry? Or was it over near the final coordinates of "Where to next"? Or would I have been wasting my time in both locations I think we shuld be told!

What's the alternative? We go out in a group of four normally (two user IDs comprising two people each). We all plan the route and walk to GZ and start searching. Inevitably only one of the four find the cache. Both 'teams' sign the log and we move on to the next, which someone else in the group will probably find. If the OP is saying only one person (or team) finds it so only one can log it then we have a problem don't we, because everyone has now seen the cache and knows where it is, but one 'team' can't log it under that logic. So what do you suggest? All retreat to a safe distance - 100, 200 feet? Then send each individual player (or should it be team of 2), who didn't find the cache, back to GZ and make them 'find' the cache again, even though they know full well where it is by now. That would get a bit tedious after a while.

Hi MrsB That's a shame. Didn't spot that. But Frank has been archiving a whole bunch of his caches in the last couple of weeks. They are within our notification range and I have noticed lots of 'archived' emails from them. Hope everything is okay with Frank and Devon Seekers - Don't know them personally but it's always a worry when you see someone archiving all their caches like that as there is usually an unhappy story of some kind behind their actions. And with Birdman taking down around 100 of his caches a month or so ago we are losing some good caches and cahers in the area.

Whoops, an hour after I posted that the CO archived the series. Shame, it was a good one for newbies or children. Sorry.

Type <br> to start a new line Type <p> to start a new paragraph (adds a blank line).

If you are still able to access the forums... http://coord.info/GC1TP5J Easy little series with cache containers the kids will love. No difficult walking and not too difficult to find. Additional prize for the kids at the end.

I think the real libel started when the poor old Etrex was described as "yellow" by the OP. I mean, what geocaching future can there be now for a GPS device whose reputation for being brave enough to go into wild and perhaps dangerous situations is in tatters?

Hi from the UK. I see the 4 caches you found all have a nice description, history and even photos of the place you are visiting and a little description about the experience you might have when you visit the cache. Did this additional work/info by the cache owner add to your experience when you went looking for them? Did it help you learn a little bit about the location and make the find more enjoyable? If so, why not add a bit of a description to your caches? Why are they there? What's special about the place to you? What can a cacher expect to see at the location? That kind of thing. This would help attract visitors to your caches and help them enjoy the experience as much as you clearly enjoyed your first finds. I know I always enjoy visiting caches with a bit of intro/background/history/ste info, and I tend to add those ones to my day's list ahead of those with little or nothing by way of a description. Hope that helps.

Don't do what I have done more than once and set the GPS to a parking waypoint and start hunting in the recommended parking area rather than the cache location half a mile away

Glad to help. The GSAK macro is the best - the cache list that prints seperately showing diff/terr and TB's is a great list to go with the map, that's why I usually only use the number tags rather then the names - keeps the map cleaner. I had a similar eureka moment when I realised that you could import a GPX PQ file into GSAK and set it to automatically set the user flags for the GPX file and clear existing ones, then generate a map to show only the caches with user flags. Makes preparing a map and list for the day's caching soooo much simpler. Happy mapping ;-)

GSAK with the myGME Google Maps Export does this brilliantly. But you do have to have GSAK so it's not a free option. Problem with any map with names is the names sit alongside the markers and if names are long they can cover neighbouring cache markers. So I tend to use the number labels then print a list of the cache names and details (which the macro also produces), so it acts as an index for the map. The free option is to use Firefox and then use the Lil devil script to add cache names to the google map within gc.com

How to deal with caches that are missing, but enabled? Simple, just go out and put a replacement cache in place of the missing one (if you can't find it), allowing following cachers to log your replacement as a find. http://coord.info/GCV89A No more DNF's and you can claim a smiley on all those 'missing' caches. Just take a stock of 'small temporary' caches in your back pack and drop them whenever you think or know the original is missing Not that we're sore or anything after not finding this one and not thinking of doing this ourselves...

Once you have your GPX file, you may want to put it onto a satnav - I think that's what you are asking. I use GSAK database that has a cool macro that generates the files for you with all the right icons for different cache types - and yes it does bleep as you drive past geocaches. To do this without GSAK, take a look at this link: http://bit.ly/aKk3LM or just Google "Convert gpx to tomtom poi" - or Garmin or whatever satnav you use. There's a number of different converters available. Once you have your POI files (Points of Interest), they just need to be copied into the MAPS directory of your satnav memory card, then you are good to go. Adjust distances by changing the "Warn when near POI" settings in your satnav, then rather than just showing them on the screen the device will beep at you as you get within your set range of a cache. The GSAK databse and tomtom macro is the neatest solution as it assigns different icons and groups for different cache types. So you can set it not to bleep at (or even show) puzzles. Of course with any solution you have to keep it up to date - I do mine weekly and it works pretty well. Hope that helps, and good luck

Ah, what's the point.

Good point, I hadn't thought of it like that before - I can see how that makes sense. And I suspect you always put additional text on your logs, not just leave the stock phrase provided by the SW as the only text in the log - which I have seen quite a lot. When I read that statement on the bottom of a log from now on I will think differently about it and see it as Nokia or Blackberry users connecting with each other. How long before we see the first "Logged from my Droid using..." - or is that already out there

I don't think I feel compelled, it's just the way I prefer to do it when I can. I usually sit on rock and spend 5 mins writing a log before going onto the next. And ok, to be honest, getting my breath back. It's kind of an excuse to take a break without admitting it's because I'm out of shape. Wonderful thing technology It helps pace things a bit so we're not dashing from one to the next without, as you say, taking time to enjoy the surroundings. If I wasn't writing my log on the phone I would probably be writing a note on paper, recording TB swaps etc so I remembered when I got home and had had a glass of wine, or two But there's no compulsion about it, and I don't think I have a lesser experience for doing it that way. I'm going to duck out of this thread now as I have seen too often how if someone does things slightly differently to someone else they get slated. I'm not saying you are doing that t4e, I don't think you are. But lots of folk seem to. Whoops perhaps I should have left my question about trimble as just that, I think I may be in for some stick for admiting doing things my way, which is different to someone else's way

I agree, I don't see the point of putting it on the log, it adds nothing of any value, and worse, it creates a string of text meaning the cacher doesn't have to add anything for the log to be accepted. That's why I was wondering if it is hard wired into the software (and hence is always going to be in every log) or if the user can edit/delete it. I didn't know GCz used to have something similar (only been using it for 8 months). That would have annoyed me, having to delete it from every log so I could start with a blank page. Glad it's not included now.

As you use this software you might be able to answer a question I have had for a while: I see a lot of logs which say "Logged from my nokia phone using Navigator by Trimble" or nearly those words. Is this sentence automatically added by the software, can the user edit it or delete it? Just curious. I use GCZ - Sshhhh - and write as much in my logs on site as I would if I were writing them back at home on the PC. I find it helps me make the log in the present tense ("Tough climb up to this one, but now it's all downhill to the next one..." for example) rather than the past tense. A bit like tweeting - what's happening now, not what happened 10 hours ago. But maybe that's just me. I also prefer to write the logs (or field notes if there's no reception) when the cache is fresh in my mind so I can do it justice. Particularly for series when at the end of a long day, late at night, I do tend to forget which was which - which was under a rock and which in a tree. I only edit for spelling when I get home. Like yesterday when I found when I got home that I had been "Prickled by a horse" instead of "a Gorse [bush]" - darn predictive text, don't get that on a PC.

My fault entirely, apologies. I said I wouldn't post here again but as you have returned I think I ought to say sorry for hijacking your thread.

Ah, that explains it. In that case there's nothing I can do. But as I said, quite a few people quoted my words so me editing my original post will not be good enough even if I could. Probably best to let this topic sink naturally down the list. To that end I won't post in it any more and will depart with my tail between my legs, a lesson learnt, and offering repeated apologies to anyone who was offended by what I wrote. And of course to the OP whose thread I inadvertantly hijacked with my misguided contribution - I hope your original question was answered before I put my foot in it. Yours apologetically Lovejoy

Have edited my post, although it wasn't a link - purposely. Apologies if offence caused. Can't do anything about others contributions, thats up to them. I wasn't offended. I was just being logical. Someone would (pretend to) get offended and it's best to prevent that because that type of content is clearly against TOA. Don't want to keep bumping this up but something odd is happening. Thought I had edited my original post but now it is back how it was and there is no 'Edit' button at the bottom. All my other posts have an edit button but not that one. Hmmm I forgot this is a family forum, am so used to using forums where what I posted would just be seen as mildly amusing and not offensive as there was no direct link to the site so someone would have to purposely type the address into their browser (after being warned it was probably not a good idea), and not accidentally click on a hyperlink within the post. But I take your well made point and would edit my post if the board would let me. But then several other people have quoted my words in their posts. Again apologies if anyone was offended by the way I posted my warning about not looking at a particular website. Lovejoy

Have edited my post, although it wasn't a link - purposely. Apologies if offence caused. Can't do anything about others contributions, thats up to them.

I'm with you. I run 7 PQs a week (which oddly produce 7,523 caches?) and which cover pretty much the whole of SW England (up to Scotland for the oldest placed cahes) - and, erm, a bit of France too. I import them to GSAK every week, just overwriting the data each time. Then a quick tomtom macro export and my tomtom is loaded with every cache in Devon and Cornwall I am ever likely to drive to/past. It also shows which are disabled, which I have already found (in case I'm out with friends who haven't found the ones I have found), what cache type they are etc etc. I can then export a GPX file from GSAK for a days caching and pop it onto my phone. If I travel out of my planned area on any day, I have to hand full details of any caches I might want to look at, on the laptop in the van. I also generate a weekly Garmin POI export from GSAK to load into Tinker's Garmin GPS, so that's all up to date too. So wherever we decide to go caching on a Sunday, 5 mins down the road or the other side of the county, the Garmin has all the caches in it we are likely to encounter. The Garmin has the location and hint, my phone/PDA has the full cache details, pictures etc and up to date logs. The data is never more than 48 hours old as the PQs run on a Friday and Saturday and our usual caching day is a Sunday. The whole thing takes about 10-15 minutes each week, as you say, over a cuppa (although tea in my case): - download/save PQs - import each into GSAK while the next downloads - click the tomtom macro button - copy the files to the tomtom SD card - click the Garmin POI macro button - copy the file across to the GPS Do I need over 7500 caches? Do I need to cover such a large area? Nope. But using the date placed method of constructing the PQs (only recently pointed out to me), you might as well set the PQ to run to max distance and get the full 1000 caches. Personally I probably wouldn't run 29000 caches but then I might not travel as far as you So I can fully understand why you would do it and how you would easily make sure the data is kept up to date enough for all practical purposes. We are obviously in a minority. Maybe some of it is down to the fact that we can, so we do

Didn't anyone ever tell you you'd go blind?

That's my Paypal account boosted by all those extra hits on the website. No, really, seriously, you are all very naughty people and you must stop it now, or you will get a jolly good spanking. (If you want to see a website that shows what that involves, give me a shout) I will desist now before I get thrown off the forums for behaviour likely to incite others to be naughty.